Dual Monitors not working

[SheepNutz]

Hello, I just installed win7 pro 64 bit on the system I built tonight, and only one of my monitors will work. I installed the latest drivers for my ATI 5770, and windows is recognizing both monitors, but only one comes on. The other stays in standby mode. I made sure both monitors are enabled. If I switch the cables in the back of the video card, then the opposite monitor works. I can also drag monitor 2 to the left of monitor one, and it takes the taskbar away from the working monitor as expected, moving it to the monitor that won't turn on. Has anyone seen this issue before? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[thefabe]

Welcome to seven forums SheepNuts. I know someone on this forum can help you but they are going to need your system specs to do so. You can fill them in here. Thanks

 

[torrentg]

It's probably a refresh rate issue. Set Windows to 60 Hz for the monitor not working well.

 

[SheepNutz]

Thanks for the welcome! Here are my system specs:
Intel Core i7 920 (not overclocked...yet)
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard
6GB Corsair XMS3 1600 ram
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770
Two Westinghouse LCM-19w4 monitors (both at 1440x900x60Hz)
Thermaltake TR2 600W psu
Hitachi deskstar 500gb IDE HDD
Other things hooked up include a card reader, samsung SATA dvd burner, old Happauge PCI TV tuner, and Creative X-Fi extreme music PCI sound card.

Hopefully that should be everything he needs. I also put those specs into the form as you suggested.

torrentg: I just checked, and both windows screen resolution section and the ATI catalyst software says that both monitors are correctly at 1440x900x60Hz. I was so hoping that your suggestion would have fixed it. That would have been a nice easy fix!

Once again, thank you all for the help and the warm welcome!

 

[SheepNutz]

Here's an update. It appears that there are some damaged pins on one of the DVI sockets on my video card. This would explain why whatever monitor is plugged into one slot always works, but never works in the other slot. When looking at the back of the video card, there are two female pins that are pushed too far in, so when you plug in the DVI cable, the male pins on the DVI cable aren't able to make contact with the female socket. I'll be replacing the video card tomorrow to see if that solves the problem, and report back here with the results. Thanks again for the help.

 

[torrentg]

It will definitely solve the problem but you can too.

Pull the card out of the machine. Then use something like a sewing needle or jewelers screwdriver to bend the pins back to their proper position. If they're not too far off, it's easy to fix if you do it carefully and have good eyesight.

But if you completely bent them by forcing the connection onto it, that will be a lot more difficult to repair.

 

[SheepNutz]

I might try that. It's not that the pins are bent, they just look like they're recessed, like pushed straight back in toward the card. The female part consists of two opposite contacts in each hole, and in this case, both opposite contacts are pushed back. I may try a sewing needle to try and pry them back out. Thanks for the tip!

 

[SheepNutz]

New video card fixed the issue. Thanks again for the help guys!